[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 10 (Thursday, January 25, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S361-S363]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        DRUG-RELATED CHILD ABUSE

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, it is becoming difficult to open a 
newspaper without reading another horrifying story of drug-related 
child abuse.
  From Brooklyn, we learn of Elisa Izquierdo, the 6-year-old girl who 
was born to a crack addicted mother. Elisa's mother allegedly beat her 
to death, leaving New York's public welfare agencies to engage in the 
usual finger pointing. [New York Times, Nov. 28, 1995]
  In suburban Chicago, a woman and two children are brutally murdered 
by a trio that includes a convicted drug dealer high on crack. [Time, 
Dec. 4, 1995].
  In Patterson New Jersey, a crack-addicted woman beats her 14-year-old 
daughter with a three-foot board with a nail protruding, after a 
dispute over dirty dishes. [New York Times, Dec. 6]
  To most of us, horrifying incidents like these seem nearly 
unimaginable. They demonstrate the incredible dangers of drugs like 
crack cocaine--drugs so addictive that they could actually impel a 
mother to kill her own child.
  These may be extreme cases, but they are instructive because they 
represent the extreme end of the kind of pressures facing young people 
today.
  Indeed, sometimes it almost seems to me as if our culture is 
dedicated to separating children from their innocence. A recent 
Carnegie Foundation report put it this way:

       Barely out of childhood, young people ages 10 to 14 are 
     today experiencing more freedom, autonomy, and choice than 
     ever at a time when they still need special nurturing, 
     protection, and guidance. Without the sustained involvement 
     of parents and other adults in safeguarding their welfare, 
     young adolescents are at risk of harming themselves and 
     others. [Report of the Carnegie Council on Adolescent 
     Development.]

  Lately, the harm referred to in the Carnegie report has been taking 
the form of increased drug use. A few numbers tell the story:

       Last year the number of 12- to-17 year-olds using marijuana 
     hit 2.9 million, almost double the 1992 level [National 
     Household Survey on Drug Abuse, Nov. 1995].
       LSD use is way up among high-school seniors--11.7 percent 
     of the class of 1995 have tried it at least once. That is the 
     highest rate since recordkeeping started in 1975. [Monitoring 
     the Future Study, released Dec. 11, 1995]
       A parents' group survey released this November found that 1 
     in 3 high school seniors now smoke marijuana [Survey released 
     Nov. 2, 1995 by Parents Resource Institute for Drug 
     Education].
       Unbelievably, another survey shows that young people are 
     more likely to be aware of the health dangers of cigarettes 
     than of the dangers of marijuana [May 1995 survey by Frank 
     Luntz].

  As I said, kids have it rough today. They are faced with adult 
choices at an ever-earlier age, as the culture surrounds them with 
hedonistic messages. And it bothers me, frankly, when I read that 
sometimes our mass media, our educators, and our public officials are 
making things even worse.
  Take the recent advent of rap and hip hop music, a kind of music that 
enjoys great popularity among young people. A lot of hip hop music is 
perfectly unobjectionable, although I have to admit it is not what I 
listen to.
  But take a look at these lyrics by the hip hop group Total 
Devastation and tell me if you hear what I hear--kids as young as 10 
being encouraged to take drugs. Chart No. 1 reads:

     When it comes to puffing blunts [blunts are a kind of 
           marijuana cigarette] I'm a 12-year vet.
     And I wasn't 10 yet when I took my first hit.
     I was headed out the house to school one day,
     And guess what I found in my dad's ashtray . . .
     Now there's only three things in life that I need
     Money, safe sex, and a whole lot of weed. Total Devastation, 
           ``Many Clouds of Smoke'']

  If my colleagues believe that this is an isolated phenomenon, let me 
quote from some other songs. This is ``Hits From the Bong,'' by the 
group Cypress Hill. Chart No. 2 reads:

     Pick it, pack it, fire it up,
     Come along, take a hit from the bong. . . .
     [Cypress Hill, Black Sunday, Hits From the Bong]

  Of course, for those of you who have led sheltered lives, a bong is a 
plastic pipe used for smoking marijuana. This is what our kids get hit 
with every day.
  This last chart has an excerpt from a No. 4 hit song by performers 
known as ``Channel Live'' and ``KRS One''. Chart No. 3 reads:

     Wake up in the mornin' got the yearning for herb
     Which loosens up the nouns, metaphors and verbs
     And adjectives ain't it magic, kid
     What I'm kickin'
     Multiflower bags and seeds for the pickin'. . . .
     [Group: Channel Live and KRS One; Song: ``Mad Izm'']

  This is not just talk, either. The author of this hit song told High 
Times magazine: ``I love marijuana.'' ``Anything that gives a good 
feeling the youth are going to gravitate towards. Period. Drugs are 
part of the human experience.'' [High Times, May 1995, p. 66]
  From Atlanta we get the Black Crowes, known for unfurling large 
banners on stage emblazoned with a marijuana leaf and bearing the words 
``Free Us.'' Crowes lead singer Chris Robinson explained to a reporter: 
``Everybody in this band smokes weed. . . . We did 350 shows, smoked 
every night, and never got busted.'' [Hartford Courant, Mar. 12, 1993]
  If you think it is easy to do something about this stuff, think 
again. Baltimore deejay Marcel Thornton lost his job after he stopped 
playing songs like ``First of the Month,'' by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, a 
song which according to the Washington Post talks about ``getting high 
and selling crack to welfare recipients.'' [Washington Post, Dec. 2, 
1995]

  According to the Post, Thornton, who attended the Million Man March, 

[[Page S362]]
  got a call from a female listener pointing out the contradiction 
between the ideals of the march and some of the lyrics he was playing--
coarse and sexually explicit lyrics that I would not repeat on the 
Senate floor. Thornton agreed; now he is unemployed.
  Some people claim that music reflects values but has no influence 
over the way people really live. But how else to explain the following 
story, reported in the December 18 Washington Post.
  A homemade video shows a man sitting at a table packaging what 
appears to be crack cocaine. His 4-year-old son sits next to him--also 
packaging a crack-like substance. The father drinks from a bottle of 
gin. The 4-year-old takes a drink. The father pulls a 9 mm pistol and 
subdues an assailant. The 4-year-old pulls a pistol--it may have been a 
toy, we do not know--and turns it on a younger sibling.
  Why was this child being trained, for lack of a better word, to be a 
predatory criminal? His father says they were making a rap music video.
  Of course, there are two sides to every coin. America's music and 
entertainment industry has brought us greater access to more kinds of 
music than at any time in history. Music entertains us, but it also 
edifies us. It has always been a source of great inspiration to me. 
There is so much in what the music industry produces for kids that is 
positive--even uplifting. And there are so many musicians out there who 
have put forth antidrug and other positive messages for people.
  I also speak as one who has been a big supporter of the music 
industry. The digital performance rights bill that was recently signed 
by the President, and the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, are only 
two of the more recent pieces of legislation that I have worked to 
enact.
  But the industry has to admit that it just is not helpful to be 
peddling albums and artists whose music endorses this type of 
completely self-destructive activity.
  To those of you at Arista, Sony, Interscope, Capricorn and Columbia 
Records, and the many others who produce and distribute these groups 
and the ones like them, I ask: How can you sit by and look at 1.3 more 
young people--that is more young people than 2 years ago--smoking 
marijuana? How can you ignore a 200-percent increase in marijuana use 
between 14- and 15-year-olds?
  The recording industry has a positive role to play here, but I just 
have to ask the people promoting these groups, do you not feel 
irresponsible distributing this garbage?
  The record industries are hardly the only sector of the entertainment 
industry that is sending mixed messages. In an episode of the hit TV 
show ``Roseanne,'' Roseanne and her husband find a stash of marijuana 
in their daughter's room. After lecturing her boyfriend, whom they 
initially suspect of buying the marijuana, they then as parents shut 
themselves up in the bathroom and smoke it.
  Now, that is one of the most popular shows on television. Why, I will 
never know, but nevertheless it is. What can our kids get from stuff 
like that? I, fortunately, missed this particular episode, but I 
understand that the writers treated it like it was something funny--as 
if the main characters in a top-rated show have no influence over our 
mores and our attitudes. [``Roseanne'' show aired Oct. 5, 1993.]
  Small wonder, then, that 67 percent of adults and 76 percent of kids 
say that pop culture--TV, movies, magazines, and pop music--encourages 
drug abuse. There may be no direct causality, but there is certainly 
positive reinforcement of a truly negative message. [May 1995 survey by 
Frank Luntz.]
  It is not just the mass media, of course. Kids are getting the wrong 
message from areas as diverse as the instructional materials they 
receive in school, and even a new encyclopedia that glorifies drug use.
  Schools all across this country hand out free copies of Scholastic 
Update, a magazine geared to youthful readers. Here is what an issue of 
Scholastic Update had to say about illegal drugs:

       Marijuana is back and coming out of the closet. Stars smoke 
     it. Musicians . . . celebrate it. TV shows like Saturday 
     Night Live and Kids in the Hall depict it as harmless fun. 
     Marijuana fashion has grown into a $10 million industry. . 
     .'' [Buschbaum, Herbert, ``Legalizing Drugs: Where do you 
     Stand?'' Scholastic Update, May 6, 1994 pp. 8-11].

  The article gushes that ``America's antidrug policy is getting a 
fresh look'' with ``[a] small but increasing number of public figures * 
* * calling for legalization of all drugs, not just marijuana,'' and 
strongly suggests that the Government treat drug use as a ``health 
problem,'' providing addicts with controlled access to cheap drugs and 
clean needles.
  Here is another example that surprised me. The 1995 edition of 
Colliers Encyclopedia--the book our kids are going to be using to write 
book reports in junior high and high school--tells us there is no 
reason to worry about drug use because ``[t]he desire of human beings 
to alter their state of consciousness is one of the few constants in 
human history.''

  The Colliers entry on ``Drugs, Prohibition of'' was written by noted 
legalization proponent Ethan A. Nadlemann. Among other novel theories 
Dr. Nadlemann advances in this entry are that most drug laws, including 
those banning cocaine and opiates, have their historic origin in racism 
and the desire to crack down on socialism and other forms of political 
dissent and nonconformity.
  What bull. I cannot believe that an organization like Colliers would 
go to this person to tell us and to tell our kids what is right with 
the world. This is the kind of material we are giving to our young 
people to read in school. Imagine what they are reading in their free 
time.
  Keeping our kids off drugs is critical for all the obvious reasons--
plus one. Those who reach age 21 without using drugs almost never try 
them later in life. Hard core drug abusers almost always start young 
and almost invariably start by smoking marijuana. Let us emphasize this 
point. Marijuana is not harmless.
  According to the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia 
University, 12- to 17-year-olds who use marijuana are 85 times are more 
likely to graduate to cocaine than those who abstain from marijuana.
  The conclusion is clear. Glamorizing drug use is just reckless, 
whether it is through music, TV, magazine articles, educational 
materials, or misguided Government policies.
  Keeping kids away from drugs in the first place requires us to 
stigmatize drug use--a conclusion confirmed by numerous surveys and one 
that, unfortunately, explains our recent upturn in youthful marijuana 
usage.
  According to a University of Michigan study, youthful use began 
rising in 1992, just 1 year after declines in peer disapproval were 
first noted.
  One organization that has been doing a great job in explaining the 
dangers of illicit drugs is the Media Advertising Partnership for a 
Drug Free America.
  The Partnership brought us the famous frying egg with the voice-over 
saying, ``This is your brain on drugs.'' They have come a long way 
since the frying egg. Lately, they have been doing a terrific job of 
producing ads that target all sorts of high-risk groups.
  But they rely on donated air time--otherwise, a very expensive 
commodity--to get their message out. This is becoming a problem for 
this group. Partnership's ad placements are off more than 20 percent--
from $365 million in 1991 to a projected $290 million this year. 
Partnership for a Drug Free America.
  Network news coverage of the drug issue has fallen dramatically, from 
518 stories in 1989 to just 82 in 1994. Center for Media and Public 
Affairs.
  We need to see more of these Partnership messages on TV, not fewer. 
The media have to be more generous with their time and more proactive. 
Unless we want a generation of junkies, more violence, more abuse and 
neglect, and more crime on our streets, we had better stop singing and 
laughing about drug abuse. It is a deadly serious matter.
  I had one of the leading French law enforcement officials tell me how 
difficult it is because Holland, a nation which has legalized drugs, 
has become the sewer through which they are pouring in all the drugs 
and then out to the rest of the neighboring states in Europe. It is 
just devastating to the nations of Europe. We cannot let that happen 
here.
  All the recent news has not been bad. I am pleased that President 
Clinton 

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has responded to Congress' call for expedited nomination of a new drug 
czar. Gen. Barry McCaffrey is an impressive nominee with a history of 
courageous and energetic leadership. I am proud that he has been 
nominated. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss these and other 
issues with him before and at his confirmation hearings. I commend the 
President for finally grabbing the ball and doing something in this 
area.
  I hope he will back General McCaffrey, who I do not think would take 
this job if he was not going to have the backing of the President. I 
hope the President will back him and help him to get out there and do 
what needs to be done.
  Mr. President, in the area of drug use, we have our work cut out for 
us. The Senate Judiciary Committee has been holding a series of 
hearings to bring national attention to bear on just how bad this 
situation has become--and they are bipartisan hearings, I might add. We 
are going to begin the process of revitalizing the drug war.
  Over the next 2 months I will be joining with Senators Dole and 
Grassley to look at specific approaches to dealing with the problem of 
drug use. By working together I believe we will be able to reclaim the 
ground that we have lost. But we cannot do it without people in America 
being aware of these problems that are just killing our country and 
killing our young people, and just satiating them with substances that 
are horrifying, debilitating and wrong, and that will lead them down 
the primrose path of drug abuse, drug addiction and ultimately death 
and degradation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition?
  Mr. HARKIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, thank you. I just want to again thank my 
colleague from Utah for his very eloquent remarks on the drug problem, 
especially on marijuana. I say to my friend, I was listening, and he 
points out some very good things. I, being the parent of two teenage 
daughters, am as concerned as he is about the lyrics I hear on some of 
these songs promoting the use of drugs, such as marijuana.
  I cannot add to anything my friend from Utah said, except I heard him 
say that hard-core drug users always start when they are young--and 
that is true--and they usually start with something like marijuana. 
Before that, they start on cigarettes. And unless and until we can get 
to that root problem of doing something about how these cigarette 
companies are pushing their products on young people we are fighting a 
losing battle. We have to get to that too and stop them from getting 
hooked on cigarettes, because it is cigarettes and alcohol and then 
right on to illegal drugs.
  So I thank the Senator.
  Mr. HATCH. I want to thank my colleague. I appreciate the kind 
remarks and hear him.
  Mr. HARKIN. The Senator has been a great leader on this issue, and I 
commend him for it.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield?
  Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to do so.
  Mr. LOTT. I wish to commend him for his remarks. I find them very 
interesting and informative. I think we can all make use of them.

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